The Government today announced that the tuition fee levels for publicly funded programmes of University Grants Committee (UGC)-funded universities will increase for three years consecutively from the 2025-26 to 2027-28 academic years.

The tuition fees per student per academic year for UGC-funded full-time undergraduates, taught postgraduate or research postgraduate programmes in 2024-25 will be $42,100, the same as the current level.

The tuition fee will increase to $44,500, $47,000 and $49,500 respectively in the following three academic years.

The Education Bureau pointed out that the tuition fees for the 2024-25 academic year will remain unchanged to allow more time for society to adapt to and get prepared for the adjustment.

The bureau noted that the tuition fees for UGC-funded degree programmes were last adjusted in the 1997-98 academic year to the current level of $42,100 per student per academic year, and have been frozen for more than 20 years since then.

It also explained that UGC-funded programmes are publicly funded and the Government set, in the early 1990s, the target cost recovery rate for the tuition fee levels at 18%.

In recent years, the rates have continued on a declining trend as the cost of delivering higher education generally moved upwards.

In the 2024-25 academic year, the cost recovery rate is projected to drop to 12.5%. After the fee adjustment, it is estimated that the cost recovery rate for the 2027-28 academic year would stabilise and improve slightly to 13.4%, the bureau added.

The Government made it clear that higher education is a major investment in Hong Kong's future and it has always handled tuition fees adjustments in a prudent manner.

When considering relevant proposals, it explained that it has endeavoured to strike a balance between all relevant factors, including its fiscal discipline and providing affordable higher education for students.

Moreover, the Government mentioned that the tuition fees adjustment this time is very modest, given that the Composite Consumer Price Index has increased by 40% cumulatively since the last adjustment in the 1997-98 academic year.

It added that it will continue to support capacity expansion and quality enhancement of higher education through allocating additional resources, with the recurrent subvention in the next academic year reaching around $24 billion.